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- D.Me.: Yes, more investigation could have been done, but there’s still PC on what there was
- CA3: Brady doesn’t apply to SW materials
- E.D.Mich.: Person a cell phone was given to as gift could consent to search
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ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
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by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com
Search and Seizure (6th ed. 2025)
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-26,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 600,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 50,000 posts since 2003 (29,000 on WordPress as of 12/31/25) -
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Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Outline of Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
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"If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. It isn't, and they don't."
—Me -
"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well."
–Josh Billings (pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw), Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things (1868) (erroneously attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson, among others) -
“I am still learning.”
—Domenico Giuntalodi (but misattributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti (common phrase throughout 1500's)). -
"Love work; hate mastery over others; and avoid intimacy with the government."
—Shemaya, in the Thalmud -
"It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers."
—Charles Dickens, “The Old Curiosity Shop ... With a Frontispiece. From a Painting by Geo. Cattermole, Etc.” 255 (1848) -
"A system of law that not only makes certain conduct criminal, but also lays down rules for the conduct of the authorities, often becomes complex in its application to individual cases, and will from time to time produce imperfect results, especially if one's attention is confined to the particular case at bar. Some criminals do go free because of the necessity of keeping government and its servants in their place. That is one of the costs of having and enforcing a Bill of Rights. This country is built on the assumption that the cost is worth paying, and that in the long run we are all both freer and safer if the Constitution is strictly enforced."
—Williams v. Nix, 700 F. 2d 1164, 1173 (8th Cir. 1983) (Richard Sheppard Arnold, J.), rev'd Nix v. Williams, 467 US. 431 (1984). -
"The criminal goes free, if he must, but it is the law that sets him free. Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence."
—Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659 (1961). -
"Any costs the exclusionary rule are costs imposed directly by the Fourth Amendment."
—Yale Kamisar, 86 Mich.L.Rev. 1, 36 n. 151 (1987). -
"There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our history that bear heavily on the Court to water down constitutional guarantees and give the police the upper hand. That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater than it is today."
— Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 39 (1968) (Douglas, J., dissenting). -
"The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their property."
—Entick v. Carrington, 19 How.St.Tr. 1029, 1066, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (C.P. 1765) -
"It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people. And so, while we are concerned here with a shabby defrauder, we must deal with his case in the context of what are really the great themes expressed by the Fourth Amendment."
—United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting) -
"The course of true law pertaining to searches and seizures, as enunciated here, has not–to put it mildly–run smooth."
—Chapman v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 618 (1961) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). -
"A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable."
—Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325 (1987) -
"For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. ... But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected."
—Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967) -
“Experience should teach us to be most on guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded
rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
—United States v. Olmstead, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1925) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)
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“Liberty—the freedom from unwarranted intrusion by government—is as easily lost through insistent nibbles by government officials who seek to do their jobs too well as by those whose purpose it is to oppress; the piranha can be as deadly as the shark.”
—United States v. $124,570, 873 F.2d 1240, 1246 (9th Cir. 1989) -
"You can't always get what you want / But if you try sometimes / You just might find / You get what you need."
—Mick Jagger & Keith Richards, Let it Bleed (album, 1969) -
"In Germany, they first came for the communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for
the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came
for me–and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
—Martin Niemöller (1945) [he served seven years in a concentration camp] -
“Children grow up thinking the adult world is ordered, rational, fit for purpose. It’s crap. Becoming a man is realising that it’s all rotten. Realising how to celebrate that rottenness, that’s freedom.”
– John le Carré, The Night Manager (1993), line by Richard Roper -
"The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime."
—Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948) -
The book was dedicated in the first (1982) and sixth (2025) editions to Justin William Hall (1975-2025). He was three when this project started in 1978.
Website design by Wally Waller, Colorado Springs. 
Category Archives: Reasonable suspicion
CA10 doesn’t defer to police: Travel plans were not implausible in context and did not support reasonable suspicion
Defendant’s speeding stop was valid, but the detention was unnecessarily long and without reasonable suspicion. The dog alert came too late after consent refused. The travel plans were not implausible at all in context and did not support reasonable suspicion. … Continue reading
DE: Flight from a consensual encounter in a high crime area was RS
Defendant’s stop in a high crime area was consensual. Defendant, however, was acting like he was checking for a gun on his person, and then he fled. That gave the officers reasonable suspicion. Loat v. State, 2017 Del. LEXIS 70 … Continue reading
S.D.Tex.: Dashcam video doesn’t support the conclusory basis for stop; suppressed
“The dash-cam video shows that Bourn was travelling at highway speed and there was moderate traffic on the highway. There is no evidence regarding the speed of the truck or other vehicles or the distance between Bourn’s vehicle and the … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Anonymous tip of man with gun alone wasn’t RS, but his flight on seeing police then was
The anonymous tip involving a man matching defendant’s description having a gun alone was not enough to make reasonable suspicion. Defendant’s flight on seeing the police, however, was. United States v. Acosta, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21657 (M.D.Fla. Feb. 16, … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: One officer nearly immediately running dog around car while second dealt with stop was reasonable
One officer running a dog around a car while the license was being checked was reasonable. The dog, of course, alerted. United States v. Dominguez-Villa, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20949 (S.D. N.Y. Feb. 14, 2017). “Between the female passenger’s attempt … Continue reading
IN: Stop without RS reverses def’s conviction for threatening officer after illegal stop
Police received a report of a person “acting suspicious” but did not receive any information at to what that was. When defendant was encountered his conduct did not admit of any criminal activity being “afoot.” The officer told defendant to … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Driving 1,000 miles to Iowa to meet one’s brother without knowing where in the entire state was “unusual travel plans”
The officer reasonably extended the stop by seven minutes by defendant’s consent after he told the defendant the stop was over and defendant agreed to answer more questions. The reasonable suspicion was that he was meeting his brother in Iowa … Continue reading
CA11: Normal part of the stop for Rodriguez included trying to call somebody to come and take the car
The normal incidents of the stop for Rodriguez purposes included trying to call somebody else to come and take possession of his vehicle. United States v. Vargas, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 2745 (11th Cir. Feb. 16, 2017). “In his complaint, … Continue reading
D.P.R.: Officer’s testimony is just too convenient to be believed
In a remarkable opinion, the court finds the officer’s testimony just too convenient and, thus, incredible and suppresses the seizure by an alleged plain view. Also, the plain view required manipulation, and that’s not plain view. United States v. Mata-Peña, … Continue reading
FL1: Arrest for invited use of school track for exercise was without PC
Defendant was arrested without probable cause for using a school track for exercise. Despite a school no trespassing sign, there were signs inviting public use of the track and every school patron, neighbor, and police officer apparently knew it except … Continue reading
IA: Def’s father’s search of his stuff was objectively as a concerned parent, not as a LEO so it’s a private search
Defendant’s stepfather was a Davenport police officer, and, off-duty, he searched defendant’s property twice and turned it over to the police. The detail of his actions show him acting as a concerned parent, not as a law enforcement officer. Therefore, … Continue reading
IA: A claim of officer safety has to be objectively justified by the record; Rodriguez followed under state constitution
Iowa adopts Rodriguez under state constitution after a lengthy comparison of its own cases and cases from around the country. A claim of officer safety has to be objectively justified by the record; merely stating it doesn’t make it so. … Continue reading
CA10: Officers pulled up next to def walking along road and finally told him to stop; this was a seizure without RS
Defendant was walking down the street at night and a police car pulled up beside him and officers were talking to him as he walked. Finally they told him to stop. This was a seizure for which there was no … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Def’s evasive movements near and shortly after a shooting call was RS
Defendant’s evasive movements near and shortly after a shooting call that at least partially matched him was reasonable suspicion. “The sum of the information available to the officers when they decided to stop Porter gave them reasonable suspicion that he … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Officers had good reason to know CP on flash drive before looking; SW was based on independent source
Defendant’s house was broken into by neighbors, and they stole things, including a flash drive which defendant had admitted to them in the past had child pornography on it. The police got the flash drive from the neighbor and looked … Continue reading
M.D.La.: Officer’s claim of a burglary in progress and that a protective sweep was justified was completely unjustified
It should have been apparent to the officers that the defendant was a friend of the homeowner and was a guest in the premises, and their entry was unjustified under a claim of a burglary in progress or that a … Continue reading
CO: Dog alert for MJ still justifies a search of a car, even in a MMJ and recreational use state
Even in a recreational and medicinal marijuana state, the smell of marijuana picked up by a dog is probable cause including a search of the trunk. The court rejected the claim that the dog would alert on both legal and … Continue reading